New Privacy Rules: How They Affect Your Email Strategy and Optimisation Tips

New Australian Privacy Principles go into place on 12 March 2014. Is your company compliant? We have tips for you on how to get compliant with the new Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and how to make sure that your email campaign is still effective at turning a return on investment.

What is the Australian Privacy Principles?

The new Australian Privacy Principles are set to replace the old National Privacy Principles and Information Privacy Principles. It will apply to organisations as well as both Australian and Norfolk Government agencies. Below are the 13 principles, as listed below, but you can read them in detail on http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-resources/privacy-fact-sheets/other/privacy-fact-sheet-17-australian-privacy-principles or www.comlaw.gov.au.

• Part 1: Consideration of personal information privacy
  • Australian Privacy Principle 1 — open and transparent management of personal information
  • Australian Privacy Principle 2 —  anonymity and pseudonymity
  • Part 2: Collection of personal information
    • Australian Privacy Principle 3 — collection of solicited personal information
    • Australian Privacy Principle 4 — dealing with unsolicited personal information
    • Part 3: Dealing with personal information
    • Part 4: Integrity of personal information

o   Australian Privacy Principle 5 — notification of the collection of personal information

o   Australian Privacy Principle 6 — use or disclosure of personal information

o   Australian Privacy Principle 7 — direct marketing

o   Australian Privacy Principle 8 — cross-border disclosure of personal information

o   Australian Privacy Principle 9 — adoption, use or disclosure of government related identifiers

o   Australian Privacy Principle 10 — quality of personal information

o   Australian Privacy Principle 11 — security of personal information

·       Part 5: Access to, and correction of, personal information

o   Australian Privacy Principle 12 — access to personal information

o   Australian Privacy Principle 13 — correction of personal information

How to Remain Compliant with New Privacy Laws and Still Have Success with Email Campaigns

One of the main reasons revision of old privacy laws is necessary is because of advancing technologies and increase in mobile usage. More and more of your target audience will be reading your emails on their mobile devices. Here are 5 ways to maintain efficiency and an ROI for your email campaigns while also keeping compliant with the new policies on privacy.

1.     APP Compliance: The above rules are just an outline of the new policy on privacy. Make sure to read the rules in detail and make sure that you are in compliance so you do not put your email campaign and company in jeopardy of facing violations.  MarketingMag  explains that “this means disclosing to customers why certain personal information is captured, where it is stored and accessed from and how to update it. If your current email communications don’t have a working link to your company’s Privacy Policy or lack an ‘Update your profile’ option, you might be in breach of one or more APPs.”

2.     Responsive Design: Up to 50% of emails are now opened and mobile devices. Responsive design makes it so that your email message fits on the screen.

3.     Content Checking: Consumers are fickle. If your links do not lead them to the right place and if the information presented in your email is not accurate or full of misspellings or grammar errors, it can be deemed not credible. Therefore, double checking your content is imperative.

4.     Branding and Engagement: You should be thinking about branding and engagement in all of your communications. If your email does not spread the right message and engage your target base, they will not respond the way you want them to. Remember your call to actions! Even if it may seem obvious to you what you want your email subscribers to do, it may not be obvious to them. Spell it out and let them know!

5.     Security and Authentication: Another growing problem with email communications includes hackers and fraudsters attempting to get personal information. You can prevent this from happening to your email recipients by making sure to communicate security protocols with them and have redundancy backup measures in place if any secure information is kept about your customers. Another security measure you can you on a domain level is “domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) is another, more recent standard. DMARC provides further protection by reporting back any email that is received without proper authentication. As a domain owner, DMARC means you can get an alert from the recipient’s email provider next time someone pretends to be you – when implemented, you can even instruct email providers to block such emails altogether.” – MarketingMag.com.au